atheism,--as in the case of Buddha, who taught morals rather than
religion. Perhaps the oldest and most prevalent religious idea of
antiquity was the necessity of propitiatory sacrifice,--generally of
animals, though in remotest ages the offering of the fruits of
the earth.[2]

[Footnote 2: Dr. Trumbull has made a learned and ingenious argument in
his "Blood Covenant" to show that sacrifices were not to propitiate the
deity, but to bring about a closer Spiritual union between the soul and
God; that the blood covenant was a covenant of friendship and love among
all primitive peoples.]

The inquiry might here arise, whether in our times anything would
justify a man in committing a homicide on an innocent person. Would he
not be called a fanatic? If so, we may infer that morality--the proper
conduct of men as regards one another in social relations--is better
understood among us than it was among the patriarchs four thousand years
ago; and hence, that as nations advance in civilization they have a more
enlightened sense of duty, and practically a higher morality. Men in
patriarchal times may have committed what we regard as crimes, while
their ordinary lives were more virtuous than ours. And if so, should we
not be lenient to immoralities and crimes committed in darker ages, if
the ordinary current of men's lives was lofty and religious? On this
principle we should be slow to denounce Christian people who formerly
held slaves without remorse, when this sin did not shock the age in
which they lived, and was not discrepant with prevailing ideas as to
right and wrong. It is clear that in patriarchal times men had,
according to universally accepted ideas, the power of life and death
over their families, which it would be absurd and wicked to claim in our
day, with our increased light as to moral distinctions. Hence, on the